Favorite references..... *****


 
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Gary Bramley

TVWBB Pro
For all things not BBQ, what are your favorite cooking references? I am looking to build up a small library and the choices are overwhelming. Any suggestions.....

Thanks!

Q'n, Golf'n & Grill'n.... too many choices!
Gary
 
I don't use them either (except for baked goods, mostly) but I do use reference books on occasion and, sometimes, some cookbooks as references. They are good for ideas, techniques, familiarizing oneself with the unfamiliar, self-teaching, etc., and are indispensible for the professional cook--or for one who either aspires to cook professionally or for the serious cook looking to increase skills or repertoire.

In no particular order, a few of the many I like:

The Professional Chef Culinary Institute of America; A Produce Reference Guide to Fruits and Vegetables from Around the World: Nature's Harvest Donald Heaton; Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference Elizabeth Schneider; The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco , and The Cooking of Southwest France all by Paula Wolfert; Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making James Peterson; Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn; Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing Rytek Kutas; The Cake Bible Rose Levy Beranbaum; Maida Heatter'S Book Of Great Desserts Maida Heatter; Classic Indian Cooking Julie Sahni; The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook Julee Rosso, Sheila Lukins, and Sarah Leah Chase; On Food and Cooking Harold McGee; Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor Hervé This and Malcolm DeBevoise
 
More of a CookBook that covers a broad spectrum, but has good reference about the dishes in the book is "The Joy of Cooking" I don't really follow recipes except for baking, which I do very little of, not my thing. I have many cookbooks but use them for ideas and inspiration but I have a real hard time following recipes. I just like to give them a twist and make them my own. I like the joy of cooking, still turn to it often. "Great Sauge and Meat Curing" as Kevin mentioned above is a great book and read. Charcuterie: is on my list to get. Also thanks to Kevin for posting this one, I don't have any sauce books so I'll try and find this one he mentioned, Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making. HTH
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Charcuterie is a very good book imvho. The Rytek Kutas book is pretty good too but the information is pretty scattered/hard to follow some times. Personally, I'd love to get Bryan S.'s Mothers German Resipes book that's, well, somewhere.. ;~)

Bill
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Bill Hays:
Charcuterie is a very good book imvho. The Rytek Kutas book is pretty good too but the information is pretty scattered/hard to follow some times. Personally, I'd love to get Bryan S.'s Mothers German Resipes book that's, well, somewhere.. ;~)

Bill </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Bill, Just so you can rest easy tonight. She has it in her Will that I get them. Most are written in German but we can work around that.
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Also, after my first post I did go to Amazon and ordered those 2 books.
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One book that I keep turning to time and time again is "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child. Just seems to have everything. Lots of info, no B.S., and impeccably timed witticisms.
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It was cooking my way through Mastering when I was 14-15 that was the single most important reason cooking became an avocation--then a vocation--for me.
 
My cooking skill level and knowledge is pretty basic. I find a lot of the Cooks Illustrated materials very informative and helpful to understand what happens when cooking and why. Very similar to what you may or may not learn from watching Good Eats.

My sense of a reference book is much more basic than others (I guess read beginner level cook). I don't know which end of the spectrum you fall in. My wife has many of the cookbooks mentioned by Bryan and Kevin and if nothing else, they are fun to read.
 
A few of the suggested references are going into the library. Thanks for the help!

Q'n, Golf'n & Grill'n.... too many choices!
Gary
 
JOY. For years, pre-tvwb, I used this as a reference. Those of you who have training may comment on its value but for an rookie....Joy of Cooking served me well till I lost my copy.
 
When I read the title of this post, I did not necessarily think of "cooking references" and my mind went to one of my favorite sites for references. There is a web site called ceoexpress.com ( see here) that has links to almost anything you want to know including Middle Eastern Newspapers. You can even find out the weather at any bouy in the US offshore waters, and track flights in real time. It is one of my favorite reference sites.

Hope this is not too much off the subject.

Ray
 
Some favorites from my collection are "The Sauce Bible"...a guide to the saucier's craft by David Paul Larousse. The book from the CIA, "The New Professional Chef, and "The Great Salsa Book" by Mark Miller.

The Sauce Bible is a good comprehensive book on making and understanding the various families/derivatives of sauces. The Great Salsa Book is 145 pages of any salsa recipe you could imagine, tomato, corn, fruit, tropical, bean, etc, etc. The CIA book is almost 1200 pages and covers it all.

For BBQ, I really like Mike Mills book "Peace Love and Barbeque", and Vince Staten's "Jack Daniels Barbeque Cookbook".
 
Well, all my books came from Amazon. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making , Charcuterie, and I threw in Robert Irvines book, Mission Cook.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by K Kruger:
a few of the many I like:

Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making [/i] James Peterson; </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
I must give Thanks to Kevin for posting this one. I just started going through it and this book rocks. Great read and almost 600 pages.
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